We recently had the opportunity to spend time with friends at their little place in a small village in Pennsylvania. When the skies and the moon cooperate, it’s a pretty decent place to star gaze, at least compared to where we live in the suburbs. And even though the moon was full, it didn’t rise over the mountain until well after sunset and the skies were clear. It was a pretty night sky. The phone’s camera was able to capture even more than what I could see with the naked eye.
As I sat there on the patio, in the darkened evening, the firepit no more than a faint glow and in the company of beloveds, the universe overwhelmed me. We see nothing of its vastness. Except for maybe a couple of hundred stars and several satellites going by each minute, we see just a tiny speck of it. “We” who think so much of the human race and ourselves as individuals, we struggle to even conceptualize what 6,000 miles looks like without looking at a globe and finding a distance we do know. By the way, 6,000 miles is a little under a quarter of the earth’s circumference. The Earth isn’t even visible in an image or illustration of our galaxy. Keep zooming out and our galaxy disappears from view. In the scope of our own galaxy we amount to nothing, even significantly less in vast scope of the universe.
So why do we believe we matter? Or think we are so special and unique? We are complex creatures who struggle to communicate across our planet, a rock of a planet with a molten center and delicately balanced and fragile ecosystems that are tipping to extremes that can and will change how we live…or don’t. We can also be unbelievably cruel to one another.
As humans, we have told stories over the millennia to explain, understand, and wrap our minds around the how’s and why’s of our existence and our place in creation, including the universe. People of “modern” faith traditions tell creation stories, flood stories, war stories, and liberation stories. We, and even many who eschew religion, use names like God, Allah, YHWH, Creator, Spirit, Life Force, Generative Energy and others names to point to the source of our existence and our being.
Whether you hold to a creation story, a scientific explanation, a random chance event, or something else or a combination, the existence of humanity in this enormous universe is nothing short of a miracle. So, why do we live so unaware of that on most days, or every day? Why do we abuse this rock, spinning in space, with millions of small cuts a day? The Covid pandemic should have taught us that our lives are part of an expansive interconnected web that covers the planet; and yet the richest country in the world can’t or won’t offer good, healthy support to those living on the streets, allows food to expire and be destroyed rather than send it to starving people. Our ability to be cruel is stunning at times. We obsess over things that really do not matter, even though we convince ourselves that they do, as we bow to false gods.
In the good Lutheran way of embracing paradox, we are BOTH “all that”…AND “nothing” as viewed even as part of the Milky Way. Human beings can be incredibly generous, kind, and loving. We can be awed by the grandeur of a vista or the details packed into a tiny flower. When we want to take the time to notice such things. My photo captured more stars than my eyes could see, but much less than a very clear, dark, and light pollution-free sky would reveal, and especially much less than what the likes of NASA equipment can capture.
Even so, that night in southeastern Pennsylvania left me awed by view of the sky and our existence; and overwhelmed by the suffering in the world today and that’s yet to come as we, select nations and individuals, continue to aim for more stuff, power, and wealth with little or no thought to the costs or consequences.
Stopping to sit in a chair out on a patio in the dark, can truly leave you feeling simultaneously very special and like nothing more than a speck of dust on a bigger speck of dust. Of course, I, we, you, come from dust. We’re made of the same stuff as star dust.
The next morning, sitting on the porch, I watched the sunlight dancing on the spider webs, the butterflies fluttering around the flowers, and listened to the breeze making the chimes sing…those little things that make the world and creation beautiful.
If you take a moment to gaze at a clear and dark night sky, where do your thoughts take you? What do you feel when you look up?
In addition to our small size, our time is equally small. How can you, we, be better stewards of our time?
P.S. The photo seems to have more stars visible when viewed in a darkened space, as if looking at it in bright light, our eyes cannot see the much fainter stars.
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